Monthly Archives: December 2016

“…my fellow soldiers will tell you I’m a terrible shot.” – Aaron Burr, in the musical “Hamilton” I begin by expressing my deepest gratitude. First, I am today and on all days incredibly grateful to you, dear reader, for keeping up with my smatterings of blatherings here. It means more to me than I can say. Second, “look around, look around, at how lucky we are to be alive right now.” Lin-Manuel Miranda gave us that refrain in his musical…Continue Reading »

In recent news, Pantsuit Nation founder Libby Chamberlain decided to turn the site into a book. Some longtime members have made it very clear that they are bothered about this, and I absolutely respect anyone who opts out of the site. Here’s what I have more of a problem with: In a new Huffington Post piece titled “Pantsuit Nation is a Sham,” Harry Lewis excoriates site founder Libby Chamberlain for minimizing the experiences of persons of color (POC) and for…Continue Reading »

In many ways, 2016 has proved that I was right, three years ago, to start a blog dedicated to populism. In many ways, this has been The Year That Populism Would No Longer Be Ignored. Even as populism has been mainstreamed, it’s also been misunderstood and misappropriated by some, particularly elitists who are rightly worried about it. One such elitist deserves particular attention, because when you google “what is populism?” his 2016 cash-in book comes right up. His name is…Continue Reading »

Dar, can I read you a story? (He looks off distantly.) Great! One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six. All the…Continue Reading »

If there’s one thing we know from post-2016-election media, it’s that everyone on the internet sees things through their personal hobbyhorse. This well applies to major reviews of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story; the leading film critics are invoking not only previous Star Wars films but also The Seven Samurai, The Dirty Dozen, and more. Fair enough, but the operative comparison should be Aliens, the 30-year-old James Cameron-directed film starring Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley. Using the lens of…Continue Reading »

Cross posted here. If there’s one word you want to avoid saying around Tony Blair, it’s “poodle.” Profanities won’t bother him. But when you’re walking through a dog park with Britain’s former Prime Minister, you don’t even want to casually remark, “hey, that lady has a nice poodle.” The word is quite triggering. This blog post is dedicated to one question: what kind of word can we come up with to trigger Trump this way? First, background for those of you who…Continue Reading »

As I’ve said before, I sometimes wonder how Dar’s memoir will someday read. You know, let’s say he turns out like Carly Fleischmann and can actually explain himself someday. So I picture his eventual autobiography… Thanksgiving 2016 Mommy and Daddy have been acting weird all month, they keep saying “Don Aldtrump” or something. Whatever it is, they should get over it. What are all these people doing in our house? And why is our dining room table stretched out with…Continue Reading »